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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

when u install all available packages right after installation, it seems to slow it down a little,opens shell scripts in Kwrite instead of running them, other than that everything is perfect

i know im running SuSE 9.2 professional but i couldnt find it in the list so maybe it will get moved when its created, comes in a 5 disc package, installed and was surfing the net in about 30 mins, very easy to setup
comes with 3.08 gigs of extra software. many games to choose from, only thing i dont like is the fact that some rpm's you download wont install and some will,
c/c++ compiling tools dont come installed default, desktop is beautiful

I'm also posting here about SUSE 9.2 PRO as there's no special section for this distro yet.

This is actually the FIRST distro I've used where ALL my hardware was detected (on a laptop AND desktop) and worked first time without any glitches. I've given the distro 9 rather than 10 as you still have to do one or 2 strange things to make it totally desktop friendly for Normal users rather than root.

I'll skip the install etc as anyone whose used to SUSE will have been through this before.

The minor stuff --- 1) Sound -- you have to add users to the AUDIO group otherwise only ROOT will be able to access any of the sound facilities. If you don't do this you'll find you won't have any sound as a user and you won't even be able to configure a sound card as you won't see any sound device as a user.

2) Menu size for a USER still needs the same fix as 9.1 --Go into your hidden kde directory .kde as per 9.1 and set the size.

3) DHCP (client) says it can't find IP address and returns error at boot with message eth0 service not started --but ignore it as Internet connection seems to be fine once system has completely booted.

4) I'm afraid I prefer the old KWINTV to the new app --but at least it still works.

5) Still no DVD player -- you need to find a copy of LIBDVDCSS and the win32 codecs -- then XINE will work --ensure you point XINE to /media/dvdrecorder as the input stream --then it works fine even as a user. The old Brazilian site --campuccia or something like that which had the CSS module has gone off the air so you'll have to source this from elsewhere. I've been using the same one I've had since SUSE 9.0 and it still works.

6) just beginning to get into a sort of price range that might put some people off -- but if you take into account this is a very polished professional and stable distro that you can install on as many machines as you like without that activation BS and the Office Apps are almost as good as the M$ one's then the price IMO is worth it -- you can wait for 9.2 personal if you are baulking at the price however.

Now for the good stuff

1) fonts are nice now--desktop awesome.

2) Setting up X with new XORG seems a breeze --I didn't bother downloading any NVIDIA drivers and I found I could still use my machines at full screen resolution. Screen fonts are great so you don't really need to copy Windows True Type Fonts unless you have some specialized ones.

3) Windows partitions aren't hosed up when re-partitioning a disk for Windows dual boot especially if you are using NTFS.

4) Back button on YAST stuff works correctly now --sometimes it didn't work on 9.1 and you were locked into the application.

5) a lot of wireless cards now work straight out of the box.

6) LAMP -- Mysqladmin, php, mysql and apache work with minimal setup.

7) Open Office is now a serious contender to Microsoft Office --even die hard Office users should feel quite at home with Open Office and there's quite good interchangeable compatability as well.

Recommendations --after install but before first boot go back into YAST and set run level to 3. If there are any problems it's not always easy to fix if X starts automatically.

Queries -- I'm not a developer so I can't say what's missing or not with regard to C, C++ / other compilers / development aids -- I'll leave that to other reviewers.

All in all an excellent distro that really can give 'Doze a run for its money. Highly recommended.

This is definitely a serious production tool and while it might not appeal to some more traditional and die-hard 'Nixers this really is a serious competitor to that other well known company in Seattle. So far Novell has done a great job unlike Red Hat which has really left individual users with that messy sponge known as Fedora --Ok as a Toy but not as a serious office production environment.

out of mandrake 10.1, fedora core 3, red hat 9, xandros 3.o deluxe and suse 9.1 this is the best id say. im pretty new to linux but this one seems to be a little easier than others to operate. it was a breeze to setup my wg511t wireless card and screen resolution (widescreen). it seemed to get almost all my drivers and if not supported a generic driver. the main problem i had was the touchpad. it was very buggy. but i would recomend this to new linux users, as well as linspire.